


In the woods somewhere

by kittysorceress



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Grindeldore Holiday Exchange, Grindeldore Holiday Exchange 2019, King of the Fairies, M/M, Summer of 1899
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 02:28:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21949954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittysorceress/pseuds/kittysorceress
Summary: Once upon a time, a wizarding family lived in a beautiful old house at the edge of a dark forest.When six-year-old Ariana Dumbledore meets a strange golden boy in the forest, she unwittingly sets off a series of events which will change her family's future.When eighteen-year-old Albus Dumbledore meets a beautiful golden youth in the forest many years later, he falls in love.
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald, Ariana Dumbledore & Gellert Grindelwald
Comments: 5
Kudos: 55
Collections: Grindeldore Holiday Exchange 2019





	In the woods somewhere

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Poetiicdissonance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poetiicdissonance/gifts).



> Based on bug_from_space’s requests for fairytale and Lord of the Fae/Lord of the Dead, as well as their fondness for summer of 1899 and AUs of that period of time, I was inspired by Goethe’s _Erlkönig_ and Angela Carter’s _The Erl-King_ to shift the story of Ariana’s death to a fairy trick and give our young men a different, although still not entirely happy, ending.
> 
> The title of the fic is taken from the [Hozier song of the same name](https://youtu.be/ZMk-Nb_viR8), which also formed part of the inspiration for the plot.
> 
> Merry Christmas/Season’s Greetings/Happy Holidays! I hope you all enjoy this journey into the Fairy Forest.

Once upon a time, a wizarding family lived in a beautiful old house at the edge of a dark forest.

The father, Percival Dumbledore, was a wizard revered in his community, favoured in the Ministry for his stoicism and rationality, while the mother, Kendra, was a talented witch with a knack for tricky potions and clever charms. Together they had three wonderful children, two sons and a daughter. The eldest son, Albus, was more intelligent than any other boy his age, and the younger, Aberforth, was strong and brave. The daughter, Ariana, was filled with sweetness and with all the wit and courage of her older brothers combined.

They were a happy family, isolated though they were from the wizarding world in their home on the edge of the wood. But they liked the house, and its gardens, and the quaint muggle village nearby. And so they chose to live in peace alongside the muggles, befriending them and adopting just enough of their customs so as not to draw unwanted attention.

They would go to the church on Sunday, the markets on a Friday. The children attended the school to learn their letters and numbers, and when the muggle children went home to help with the harvest or the housework, the young Dumbledores would spend their afternoons learning about their magical birthright – the creatures, the myths, the world of spells they would come into on their eleventh birthdays.

And when the three young children would return from their adventures in the village with the muggle children, the muggle tales of the forest sprites fresh on their lips, Percival and Kendra were always sure to set them to rights.

‘Yes, fairies are real. But they are small and have very little magic,’ Kendra would soothe, or else, ‘No, they do not steal muggle children away. Where did you hear nonsense like that?’

Percival would return from the Ministry and laugh, telling his children, ‘No, there is no fairy world beyond a secret veil. The muggles are probably half-remembering tales of real magic. There is nothing to fear from those tiny creatures.’

Before the children went to bed, their parents would kiss them and assure them that they needn’t leave cream on the windowsill nor coins in their shoes to keep the fairies happy. They would whisper, ‘Yes, we are sure that you are safe. You will always be safe when we are here.’

* * *

It was nearly the end of summer, and the Dumbledore children were picnicking with their muggle friends in a glade on the edge of the woods. As the afternoon wore on, and the heat of the day became more intense, their numbers dwindled, first Aberforth leaving to find more lemonade, and then the other boys and girls making their own excuses and heading back into the shade of their own homes. At last, only Albus and Ariana remained, threading daisies into each other’s hair and laughing as the petals tickled their sunburned skin, the sky beginning to grow gold with the sunset.

‘I wish you didn’t have to leave in September,’ Ariana said as Albus bundled up the remnants of their picnic into the baskets. ‘I’m going to miss our fun. Aberforth never wants to play princesses with me.’

‘I will miss our fun too,’ Albus smiled sadly with all the wisdom of his eleven years, ‘but we all have to grow up one day. Just you wait, it will be your turn to come to Hogwarts soon enough!’

At that, Ariana brightened again. She was only six, but she could not wait to learn all about spells and potions and everything she did not yet know of the wizarding world.

‘Are you coming home?’ her brother continued, lifting the baskets, now far lighter than they had been that morning, into the crook of his arm. ‘It will be time for tea soon, and mother will be wanting our help.’

Ariana shook her head, levitating another daisy with her childish magic and placing it into the chain she was fashioning. ‘I want to stay a little longer. Tell mother that I’ll be there before dark.’

And so Albus left his sister playing with her magic and the flowers in the glade as he returned to the house, his head full of thoughts of school and books and all that was ahead of him. Ariana, in turn, was so engrossed in finding the next piece for her floral arrangement and then the next, and the next, that she did not see the direction her brother had departed towards.

At last, a beautiful floral crown intended as a gift for her mother completed, Ariana turned and looked for the path out of the glade. But the path was gone. It was as though the trees had closed in upon themselves, again and again, and the edge of the forest was no longer to be seen.

‘Albus?’ she called, edging around the glade in the hope of finding the path. ‘Aberforth? Is anyone there?’

The only response was the wind, wild and rustling through the leaves.

In the gathering dark, a pair of bright blue eyes watched from a high branch as the young girl continued to search and grew more and more distressed.

‘M…m…mother? F…f…father? Is that you?’ she cried, tripping over a root and falling to her knees, ‘I can’t find my way home!’

‘I can help you,’ called the voice of a boy from high in the treetops. Kind and sweet and everything she needed to hear.

Ariana looked up and around but saw nothing in the twilight. ‘Who’s there?’ she called.

‘A friend,’ came the response.

To her great surprise, Ariana watched as a lithe young boy around Albus’ age dropped from one of the great oaks to the grass in front of her. He was slender and tall, with golden gleaming curls long around his face and bright eyes and translucently white skin which tinted pink high on his cheeks. He was dressed all in deep green and had a lantern in his hand which shone every bit as golden as his hair.

‘You shouldn’t be on the ground in such a pretty dress,’ he said, looking over where she had fallen into the dust, ‘it would be such a shame to ruin it any further.’

He extended a hand and helped her back to her feet. Ariana dusted the dirt she could from her dress and noticed in the yellow light from the lantern that she had torn the lace hem in her fall and that her knees here scraped red raw through her ripped stockings.

‘Thank you. Will you show me the way home? It’s awfully dark and I don’t know the way and it must be past tea time now.’

‘Of course, but let me find you something to eat and drink first. You’ve had quite the scare.’ The golden boy smiled, crooking his elbow for her to take. And she did, because there was something about this boy which made her feel safe.

Deeper into the forest they walked, until they reached a clearing ringed by toadstools and lit with several more of the golden yellow lanterns. At the centre stood a small table, surrounded by silky cushions and furs, and laden with fruits and heavy goblets. The boy invited Ariana to sit and she did so gladly, her legs heavy with exhaustion.

‘Eat and drink, please. Let the spoils of the forest soothe you.’

As the boy tended to her grazed knees, Ariana nibbled at the strange fruits and sipped on the sweet nectar in her goblet, a sense of calm coming over her.

‘What is this place?’ she asked, when the boy was done and had taken his own place on the cushions.

‘My own special grove, a gift from my father for me to visit whenever I choose.’

‘So you live nearby? I’ve never seen you at school. _My_ father says it’s very naughty to not go to school.’

The boy’s laugh tinkled like crystal through the night air, ‘Not exactly. It’s a magic grove, it goes with me into whichever forest I wish to visit.’

‘I’m not supposed to talk about magic with strangers,’ Ariana tensed, a brief sense of danger passing through her. But with another sip of nectar it floated away and she felt a great calm once more.

‘Don’t worry, I’m certainly not a muggle.’ He smiled widely as he waved a hand, mending the tear in her dress and transfiguring her torn stockings for new ones in a pale gold which matched his hair. ‘You’re a witch right? And that boy, with the flowers through his dark red hair, I could sense his magic too.’

Ariana nodded, stifling a yawn. She could feel her eyelids growing heavy. ‘That’s my oldest brother Albus. He’s off to Hogwarts soon. And my other brother, Aberforth, he’s magic as well.’

‘My mother wants me to go to Durmstrang next year,’ the boy told her sadly, ‘but that would mean leaving my forest behind and going to the sea. I want to stay with my father, here in his realm.’

‘It’s a lovely realm, you’ll have to bring me back one day.’ Ariana replied sleepily, bringing her head down to rest on her soft seat for just a moment, ‘And Albus too, he’d like it here.’

‘You will return to me. And if you do not, I will come to find you and bring you to my father’s people. There you may have all the fruit and nectar your heart desires.’

But Ariana, already fast asleep on the cushions and furs, did not hear the boy’s dark promise.

* * *

When Ariana awoke the next morning, the pale dawn creeping across her face, there were no furs and no cushions, no table and no lanterns, no golden boy. This was how her father found her – alone, lying in the dirt, the grazes on her knees bright red and her dress and her old stockings once again in shreds, the path back through the forest stretching before her.

Percival would not listen to her story about the golden boy and his father’s realm and the special ring of toadstools. He did not hear that the boy was magic, or that he was kind, or that he made her feel safe. He could only see that her daughter had told a boy about her magic and that she was hurt and that she had been missing for a whole night.

Ariana wailed as her father carried her home to her mother and brothers. And as she screamed, Percival’s anger grew and grew, until he became certain of something which could not be further from the truth: that the muggle children she had been playing with in the grove did this to her, and they should be made to pay for their crime against her.

It would not be kind to detail the horrors which Percival Dumbledore brought against those three muggle boys that day. Suffice to say, no wizard alive would have declared that he deserved anything less than the sentence which the Wizengamot brought against him in turn.

But his family, forced to leave the muggle village and the home they loved, suffered for the man’s terrible mistake.

Kendra could not forgive her husband for his hot-headed and short-sighted actions which had caused her to lose not only her dearest companion, but also the trust of the entire wizarding community. Devastated as she was to have to break her family further apart, she still sent Albus away to school that next month, where he was stained with the shame of his father’s guilt, and she began to rebuild a new, more secluded life with her younger children in their new home of Godric’s Hollow.

As the years passed, the family learned not to speak of that summer. Nor of daisy chains, or muggle children. Nor of their father’s anger.

Ariana, who grew sickly and sad, her magic too dangerous for school, did not forget the kindness of the boy who had met her in the forest, nor the sweetness of the nectar he had given her.

* * *

It was nearly eight years later when a second tragedy befell the family, with Kendra’s unexpected death at the end of the springtime.

Albus, who had recently graduated top of his class at Hogwarts, had only grown more wise through his adolescence. But his wisdom was in books, not in housekeeping nor in the compassion his mother had known so well.

Left to care for his brother and sister, he could not perform those tricky potions and clever charms at which his mother excelled and he did not know how to appease his brother nor calm his sister. He was barely more than a child himself, but with the help of their kind historian neighbour Madam Bagshot, he learned what he could of the practicalities of adulthood.

Aberforth, who had grown broader and stronger than his brother and fancied himself to be the more practical of the two, took up the responsibilities of tending the goats and harvesting the small amount of produce from the vegetable garden.

And while her brothers tried to keep the household afloat, Ariana, a young woman who was now even more dangerous and strange after her years of seclusion, looked out her window towards the forest and dreamed of sweet nectar.

* * *

‘They call it the Fairy Forest,’ Madam Bagshot had told Kendra and her children some years earlier, at their second Christmas in Godric’s Hollow. ‘Although there are none of the fairies that we wizards and witches like to use for lights and spells. Only stories of girls and boys going missing in the wood and of cattle and sheep being taken in the night.’

Kendra had admonished the other woman for her fstories and shooed the young children out of the kitchen and off to bed, but Albus had stayed to ask more from the historian he had begun to see as a mentor.

‘Is it true that people really go missing? Or is that just make-believe?’

Madam Bagshot had sipped at her tea thoughtfully before replying, ‘Not in this forest, not that I know of, but certainly in others. When my niece was sixteen – not much older than you – she ran off from her home in Austria for nearly a whole week. When she returned, she told anyone who would listen that it had been a fairy king who had stolen her away. She said that he had made her his bride and kept her in his realm. I think, perhaps, it was a nice fiction to explain away an indiscretion.’

Although Albus was only thirteen, he was old enough to understand what Madam Bagshot meant.

‘She was always very fond of the forest after that, as was the child that came afterwards – she even named him for it! As soon as he was old enough to crawl, you couldn’t take an eye off him lest he be halfway down the garden path.’

A thought entered Albus’ mind, ‘Mother, you don’t think that Ariana…’

But Kendra had silenced him with a look, which was the end of the matter, and he sulked out of the kitchen in search of his siblings.

* * *

Grief made time drag along impossibly slowly for Albus. He grieved for his mother, of course, but also for the life he thought he was supposed to be living. In his mind, he should have been exploring the world and meeting famous wizards and writing important dissertations on the uses of dragon’s blood. Instead, he spent each day cooking and cleaning and failing to make his siblings happy.

One particularly trying day, frustrated after another argument with his brother over their sister’s proper care, Albus took a basket down from the kitchen shelf and made his way to the Fairy Forest in search of mushrooms and herbs for their dinner.

He had never held much stock in the stories Madam Bagshot had told him of the forest through the years and, while he could see a kind of beauty in the forest’s dark foliage and strange stillness, he could not fathom the fascination Ariana seemed to hold for it. However, that afternoon the Fairy Forest was a place of quiet relief from the stresses of home. Here his mind was at last clear enough to think of all of the clever things for which he no longer had time. Inspired as he was by the forest’s calm, Albus set himself in a shady spot against the broad trunk of a tree, pulled parchment and a quill from his robes, and set to work.

A pair of bright blue eyes watched from a high branch as he scratched away at his musings and theories. The breeze rustled soft and warm. The daylight began to fade.

‘May I join you?’ called a voice from high in the treetops.

Albus looked up and around but saw nothing in the twilight. ‘Who’s there?’ he called.

‘A friend,’ came the response.

To his great surprise, Albus watched as a handsome youth dropped from one of the great oaks to the grass in front of him. He was slender and tall, with golden gleaming curls which finished at the line of his strong jaw, bright eyes glistening with mischief, translucently white skin, and a soft mouth tinted deep red. Dressed in charcoal grey robes shot through with silvery thread, he was a breathtaking sight to behold.

‘It’s a bit dark for writing, isn’t it?’ the young man asked wryly, his English accented, the _lumos_ from his wand illuminating the makeshift study on the forest floor, ‘You’ll need spectacles if you strain your eyesight like that, and it would be a shame to cover up that fine face of yours in any way.’

Albus felt himself flush deep red. He had never been complimented in such a way, so casually and by someone he perceived to be far more beautiful than himself. ‘It’s too late, I’m afraid,’ he joked, pulling a bundle of glass and wire from a pocket in his robes, ‘but I do tend to forget to wear them.’

The young man knelt beside him, bringing his face close to Albus’, close enough that Albus could smell sweet wine on his breath and see the long eyelashes which fringed his eyes. ‘Then you should forget more often, so that I might see your face exactly like this. Handsome… flushed… full of wonderment…’

Stunned, Albus did not notice that the spectacles had been taken from his hand until the breeze seemed to shift and the young man was upright again, leaning against a tree, the offending object dangling from his fingertips.

‘Have I finally gone mad?’ Albus asked, ‘Are you some kind of apparition to tease me with friendship when I am at my most lonely?’

‘Not exactly,’ the young man’s laugh tinkled like crystal through the night air. ‘My name is Gellert, I’m staying in the village with my Great Aunt Bathilda.’

‘Then I’m your neighbour,’ Albus grinned. ‘I’m Albus. Very pleased meet you.’

‘The pleasure is all mine. Come Albus, let me walk you home.’

From that day forward, Albus and Gellert were inseparable. Every waking moment which Albus did not spend in the care of his siblings was spent with his new friend, reading and debating and theorising. And little by little, he found himself falling in love with the golden youth.

* * *

At the start of August, the muggle festival of Lammas was being celebrated in the next town over. Farmers from miles around came to celebrate the first of the new wheat, to drink and dance and celebrate. Albus and Gellert, like many of the other wizarding folk from Godric’s Hollow, went to join them.

They found themselves a place along the village green, a low stone wall to sit upon while they drank their ale and watched the world go by, talking about everything and nothing. As they listened to the fiddler and pipes, Albus tapped his toe along to the jigs and reels and watched the dancing couples with envy.

Gellert noted his gaze and, at the start of the next rousing reel, he crooked his elbow towards Albus. ‘Will you dance with me?’

And Albus took his arm, because there was something about Gellert which made him feel alive again.

They danced and danced, oblivious to the disapproving looks and concerned mutterings of the people gathered, until their feet ached and their throats were parched for more ale. Only when the musicians stopped for their supper did Albus and Gellert return to their spot on the stone wall to drink and watch the people some more, out of breath and flushed with excitement and anticipation, their arms still linked together.

There was a tradition in the village at Lammastide, that a boy and a girl who wished to be married could be bound together for a year and a day. If their love was strong and true, they would be married before the next summer. If not, they might be seen dancing with a new sweetheart at the next festival. This year, the cobbler’s apprentice was celebrating his union to the grocer’s daughter, their happy and nervous promises to each other carrying loudly from the square.

Albus watched the handfasting with a strange sadness in his chest and the colour high in his cheeks, a feeling of longing for something and someone he did not think could be his.

Gellert’s voice was soft as it broke Albus’ reverie, ‘We could have that too, you know.’

‘What do you mean?’ Albus felt the breath catch in his throat. He did not dare to hope.

‘Let me show you,’ whispered Gellert, his lips pressed to the soft skin behind Albus’ ear. Soft and loving and everything he needed to hear.

The two young men slipped away from the festivities and, hand in hand, made their way to the edge of the Fairy Forest. And the deeper into the forest they walked, the more it seemed as though they had entered another world, the trees changing from sturdy oaks to tall, thin pines, the flowers from soft violets to creamy lilies. The light grew more golden, the air sweeter.

At last, they reached the same clearing Ariana had once visited, still ringed by toadstools and lit with golden lanterns. At its centre lay the same table which Ariana had supped at, laden with fruits and heavy goblets full of sweet nectar. And all around, once again, were placed cushions and furs.

It was onto this soft landing which Gellert drew Albus downwards, capturing his mouth in a searing kiss. And another. And another.

And in their passion, the fruit and nectar sat forgotten.

When Albus awoke the next morning, the pale dawn creeping across his face, he turned to watch his lover sleeping, curled against him among the silks and furs. He could not imagine his heart any more full with love than it was at that moment.

* * *

The young men returned to the clearing in the Fairy Forest each night after that, the grove becoming their haven.

Stealing away from the village as soon as night had fallen, Gellert would lead Albus through the wood, along winding and changing paths, until they reached their haven. Too pleased to have a place to share with his lover, so far removed from the cares of rest of the world, Albus did not think to ask where they were or how they had got there.

There, on their makeshift bed, they traded kisses and secrets and grand plans for the future. They shared sparkling French wine which Gellert brought with him from Madam Bagshot’s cellar, and strawberries which Albus had pilfered from Aberforth’s treasured garden, and cream skimmed from the top of the fresh milk delivered in the wee hours of the morning.

And, whenever Albus would reach for the goblet of nectar at the centre of the low table, Gellert would coax him instead with a ripe strawberry, dipped in cream, or else seem to stumble and knock the nectar from his hands, or find another better and more intimate distraction.

* * *

The hours Albus spent with his siblings dwindled fewer still, and Gellert, who had a fine habit of making himself scarce whenever he and Albus drew close to the Dumbledore home, made no attempt to meet them.

Aberforth would see Gellert in the garden before Albus set out in the evenings, but would keep his distance. He was suspicious of foreigners, particularly ones with fine clothes and too many books and who liked the kinds of strange puzzles of which his older brother was so fond. And he had an inkling of what it was that the young men were leaving to do each night, and he did not approve.

He would not listen to Albus’ assurances that all was well. He did not hear that the Gellert was intelligent and powerful, or that he was kind, or that he made Albus feel loved. He could only see that Albus had fallen in love with another man and that such a thing would make their family a source of ridicule and pity once again.

Ariana, meanwhile, caught just glimpses of Gellert through her window… she knew him only as tall, with golden hair which seemed strangely familiar.

As she watched the beautiful young man lead Albus away each evening with tender kisses and gentle caresses, a bitter jealousy grew in her fourteen-year-old heart, for these were things she wanted more even than the nectar of the forest.

* * *

Only a few weeks before Aberforth was due to return to school, a great thunderstorm rolled through Godric’s Hollow, bringing down trees and lifting thatch from the roofs.

The day after the storm, Albus set about making the necessary repairs to their home with his brother’s help, while Ariana sat at her open window and watched their progress. She counted the fence posts as Albus righted them, and the goats as Aberforth brought them into the new pen, and the bundles of new thatch which Albus levitated to Aberforth on the roof. She called out to her brothers and shared in their jokes and, for the first time since their mother had died, they were almost a happy family once more.

As the sun began to sink lower in the sky, as if on cue, Ariana watched Gellert return again to the garden to greet Albus. She laughed as she watched the young man look around at Albus, then up to Aberforth on the roof, surprised to see his friend at work on such a manual task.

Then she looked more carefully at the upturned face, his bright gaze familiar and kind and, in an instant, Ariana recognised Gellert for who he was. He was the boy who had met her in the forest.

Her magic began to swirl dark and dangerous around her. _Take me with you_ , she wanted to scream as she watched him lead her brother away again, but her magic had consumed her voice. _Take me away with you and leave Albus behind. You were my friend first_.

Such was the power of her dark magic, such was her need to follow them to the forest, it broke the bonds keeping her to the house.

Finally free, she fled from her prison.

‘Gellert! Wait for me!’

She ran, a fury of magic and anger. Down the garden path, oblivious to Aberforth’s calls, across the engorged stream and through the muddy grass, into the Fairy Forest.

‘Gellert?’ she cried, pushing through the trees, ‘Albus? Where are you? Bring me with you! Take me to the grove!’

The only response was the wind, wild and rustling through the leaves.

* * *

That night, the forest whispered with the kind of grim, sated satisfaction that made Gellert’s stomach turn. As his dear Albus slumbered on the furs in the grove, he stayed wide awake, praying to the stars shifting slowly overhead that they would not be disturbed.

But it was a futile prayer. When an icy shiver came over him at last, he did not have to turn to see who had come to visit.

‘Well met, my father.’

‘Well met, my son,’ came the rumbling reply, like wheels over cobblestones, in a strange language which did not wake the sleeping man, ‘Will you not invite me into the circle of your grove?’

Gellert stood and turned to face his father. ‘No, I will not. You are not welcome here, this is my own special place. Please leave us be.’

The Fairy King stood at the edge of the toadstool ring, unable to take a step in the grove without an invitation. He looked upon his son with eyes of amber and flame, then over the prone body of his son’s sleeping lover, and smiled darkly. ‘His sister has returned to us at last tonight. The women are taking her now to my realm, where she may slake her thirst. I came to ask if the two of you would be joining us?’

It was not a request.

‘Not tonight,’ Gellert replied, trying to keep the fear from his voice as he stood firm against his father. ‘You know that Albus is not sworn to the Folk.’

‘Ah yes,’ the Fairy King chuckled unkindly. ‘All these nights in your _special place_ and he has still yet to taste the nectar. Am I to believe that my son has the charms to woo this young man into bed but not into partaking in a little fairy wine?’

Gellert flushed an uncharacteristically deep red in embarrassment and anger at his father’s words. ‘I will not give the nectar to Albus.’

‘But you had promised me the two of them, and two I shall have,’ the Fairy King declared. ‘I had thought you said it would be a kindness for the girl to have her brother in my realm. I waited eight years for you to bring them to me, and yet she still came alone.’

Gellert did not plead with his father. ‘You cannot have him, he is mine. I love him.’

The Fairy King’s harsh expression softened a little. ‘I know what it is to be in love. I will not take him from you tonight.’ He paused in thought, then continued. ‘I will give you a year and a day. If your love is strong and true, you may bring him to my realm as your consort. But in return, I will ask for your fealty and neither of you shall be able to come back to the mortal realm. However, if you choose not to remain bound to each other after that time, I will come to take him away to join his sister and he will belong to the Folk.’

His promise spoken, the Fairy King turned to leave. Gellert, sensing a third option, called out to him.

‘Father, wait… there is another brother…’

* * *

Once upon a time, a fairy prince lived with his lover in a beautiful old house at the edge of a dark forest.

Gellert Grindelwald was the son of a human witch who had run away with the King of the Fairies when she was barely more than a girl. Mastering the magic of his father’s people, as well as learning the ways of the wizarding world, he had grown up to become powerful, dark wizard in his own right.

His partner in all things, Albus Dumbledore was his equal in every sense. A clever wizard with a witty and cheerful mien that belied his grief, he was haunted by the ghosts of the past – the hubris of his father, the sudden loss of his mother, and the disappearance of his siblings. And yet, despite all this, he thrived by his companion’s side.

Isolated though they were from the wizarding world in their home on the edge of the wood, they had found happiness in each other’s company. They liked the house, and its gardens, and the quaint muggle village nearby. And so they chose to live in peace alongside the muggles, befriending them and adopting just enough of their customs so as not to draw unwanted attention.

And they never ventured into the forest, no matter how much it called to them.


End file.
